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The former Manchester United striker is one of the names in the running to replace sacked manager Alex McLeish at the helm of the underachieving Villans
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The Villans' win-less streak was extended to eight games after a goal-less draw with their local rivals at the Hawthorns, despite both sides nearly nicking victory at the death
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The forward continued his excellent season in Holland, while U.S. internationals in England and Germany fought to keep their sides in the top flight.
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| Real Madrid cruised into the Champions
League semi-finals with a 5-2 win on the night over APOEL
Nicosia on Wednesday while Chelsea squeezed past gallant 10-man
Benfica 2-1 to set up a re-match against holders Barcelona.
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Leverkusen's Germany midfielder Simon Rolfes is facing the first suspension of his career after elbowing Schalke 04's teenage midfielder Julian Draxler in the face. Rolfes, who made the last of his 26 appearances for Germany in the 3-0 friendly win over Holland last...
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The Russian fan who threw a banana at Roberto Carlos back in June -- the second banana incident involving the Brazilian during his time with Anzhi -- has been aprehended and confessed to the police, but he claims he didn't do it out of racist intent, just general fury.
From RIA Novosti :
"The person who threw it was arrested with the help of surveillance cameras. He has confessed to the act," Goldshtein said.
The spokesman added the man would not face any punishment over the incident.
"In his words, he did not want to offend the footballer and threw the banana out of anger and it landed close to Roberto Carlos by chance."
"The man said that he respects Roberto Carlos a lot and asks for his forgiveness. There were no racist motives behind his act."
First of all, how many people bring bananas to football matches without planning on doing something racist with them? And second, who is this guy, Donkey Kong? Who gets angry and starts throwing bananas around?
Implausible as it might be, his excuse still worked since the police believed him and let him go without punishment. |
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Once you take the lockout's chunk out of his 2011-12 paycheck, Sacramento Kings guard Tyreke Evans is making just $3.35 million this season. Milwaukee Bucks point man Brandon Jennings is making even less, at around $2.1 million. Quite a hefty haul, for you and I, but that's pretty slim takings by NBA standards; Jennings even plays for less than half of the league's average salary. It's because they're on rookie-deal contracts, scaled out to them when they entered the NBA in 2009, put in place to counter the outrageous demands of players like Glenn Robinson and Jim Jackson when they entered the NBA (ready to feel old?) nearly 20 years ago.
For their production, it's quite the bargain for Sacramento and Milwaukee. It's also why you don't see many young players (unless their name is "Charlie Villanueva") being dealt to other teams while they're still under their rookie deals. It's also why we have no idea why the Kings and Bucks are apparently shopping the youngsters in anticipation of this Thursday's trade deadline .
Not because we're incredibly bullish on either player's game. Jennings has improved by a good margin in his third NBA season, but it's taken this long for him to average 40 percent shooting from the floor, and he's firing over six three-pointers a game despite shooting just 33.7 percent from long range. Evans enjoyed a nice milestone in his rookie season as he averaged 20 points, five rebounds and five assists per game; but he's made some poor choices off the court, and he seems to be lost on the court at times if he's not allowed to completely dominate the ball as he did during that rookie season. Still, what are you going to get for them in return, at their limited price?
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| Here are your Puck Headlines: a glorious collection of news and views collected from the greatest blogosphere in sports and the few, the proud, the mainstream hockey media.
• Over on Chris Creamer's Sports Logos site, graphic artist Kristopher Bazen revealed that he helped create the infamous Buffalo Sabres BuffaSlug, publishing a series of concepts that were rejected along the way. Fascinating stuff for gear heads, or fans of Donald Trump's hair. [ s/t Scotty Wazz ]
• Vancouver Canucks GM Mike Gillis doesn't want to sound like a whiner when whining about officiating at the GMs meeting. [ Province ]
• Hybrid icing and elimination of the defensive zone hand pass are among the hot topics for the NHL GMs in their Boca Raton meetings. [ CP ]
• Goaltenders Ilya Bryzgalov of the Philadelphia Flyers and Jaroslav Halak of the St. Louis Blues as well as left-winger Ilya Kovalchuk of the New Jersey Devils were named the NHL's three stars of the week Monday. Don Cherry bemoans this lack of Ontarians. [ NHL.com ]
• Todd McLellan continues coaching for his job mixing things up for the San Jose Sharks, as Patrick Marleau has been shifted to the middle of Ryane Clowe and Daniel Winnik, and Joe Thornton centers Logan Couture and Joe Pavelski. [ Working the Corners ]
• Why Sidney Crosby should only be a power-play specialist upon his return to the Pittsburgh Penguins' lineup. [ Fischler Report ]
• The Detroit Red Wings are about to get Jimmy Howard back for their West Coast swing. [ Freep ]
• Injured forward Dan Carcillo and the Chicago Blackhawks have agreed on a 2-year extension worth a reported $825,000 per season. Which is perfect money for the team, and makes this potential headache (Shanahan has him on speed dial) more palatable. [ Sun Times ]
• Razor advocates for the end of morning skates among his 10 changes to the NHL: "Originally adopted to get players out of bed and perhaps curb late night extra-curricular activity the night before games, its unnecessary nowadays — it's a much different time. Adapt. Abolish. It's now merely a wooby blanket for coaches and some players, and a colossal time waste for everyone else. Not to mention an unnecessary added workload for the athletes." [ Razor ]
• "History Will Be Made" is … history. The NHL will have a new ad campaign for the Stanley Cup Playoffs called "Because It's the Cup", which will "attract non-hockey fans by 'socializing the Stanley Cup playoffs.'" Please don't be a bunch of pretty people in jerseys they don't own talking to the camera inside of random bars. [ Puck The Media ]
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| March 10 (Infostrada Sports) - Result and standings from the
Danish championship on Saturday.
OB Odense 0 Nordsjaelland 1
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| The pressure will be on both managers at Ewood Park for a clash between the out-of-form Villans and a recently rejuvenated Rovers outfit. |
